Underfloor heating on 14.5 hour off-peak tariff?

MikeR371

Snappy thread title huh?

Wondering if anyone's come across this. I bought my flat in Manchester about 10 years ago. It had separate regular and off-peak meters. The off-peak ran the underfloor heating for 14.5 hours a day (8pm-7.30am and 12pm-3pm). It wasn't a great system, but hey it worked and it was cheap.

I rented the flat out for a while and somehow along the way the system stopped working. Now I'm trying to get it work again. The Atlantic engineer came round and said the problem was probably with the timeswitch. Unfortunately we don't know where the timeswitch is. There's a wire into the meter area but we don't know where this goes. The switch is not in my flat and not in any of the communal areas. Atlantic seem to be telling me that the problem is not theirs and that I can go on economy 10 if I like but my heaters aren't storage so this seems a bad deal. I think they're trying to get me off this 14.5h tariff.

Anyone come across anything like this before?

Fire_Fox

Are all the flats the same? Have you got a regular caretaker who knows the flats and the system? Or can you put a note up asking other flats for guidance?

Haarlem

Your underfloor heating will consist of heating elements embedded in concrete. This in effect acts as a large storeage heater. When originally installed it was a very efficient and cost effective form of heaating.

When installed various restricted hour tariffs were availabe that gave cheaper electricity for various periods. There was usually a longer period overnight, and a boost in the afternoon and evening

If you came off these restricted hour tariffs you will probably not be allowed to go back, although some suppliers might, so ask around.

The time switch would be adjacent to the meter controlling these circuits. If it can not be found then it may have been removed.

The elements embedded in the concrete do deteriate, and fail. There would be several pads, and not all fail at once, so you could get by with a little luck.

You do need a specialist in underfloor heating to test the installation to see what is working, and get an idea if the system is working properly, and is cost effective if you have lost the right to a restricted hour tariff. An E7 may give some background heat, but I think it would need to supplement it to be comfortable. This all has an expense, so maybe now is the time to forget the installation and go for an alternative

MikeR371

I think I'll just concede defeat on this. Atlantic tell me they are unable to get the meter working on the off-peak 14.5h tariff as the meters are old/obsolete and they can't get the parts. They say they can replace it with an economy 10 meter but as I said, I don't think this offers me much. I'll just go back to using a couple of portable convection heaters and wearing lots of jumpers.